Identification of anti-hypertension drugs as potential therapeutics against breast and pancreatic cancer metastasis was a big surprise, said reseachers.

The targets of these drugs were not known to be present in cancer cells and therefore no one had considered the possibility that these drugs might be effective against aggressive cancer types, said Johanna Ivaska at the University of Turku in Finland.

Myosin-10 expressing cancers have a large number of structures called filopodia, or sticky finger-like structures the cancer cells extend to sense their environment and to navigate – imagine a walking blind spider, explained Guillaume Jacquemet, postdoctoral researcher at University of Turku.